Mercy For Animals Debuts New Commercials

The commercials depict a person buying a meat product — one in a grocery store, one at a fast food drive thru, and another in a high school cafeteria — only to notice that their package/bag/tray is dripping blood. After a pensive pause as the person surveys their blood-stained hands the commercial cuts to scenes of miserable animals in factory farms.

The ads end with a heavy heartbeat and text on the screen encouraging viewers to “help end animal cruelty. choose vegetarian chooseveg.com.”

As far as animal rights advertisements go, I give it an eight out of ten.

First, the positives: The videos are blunt and to the point. They don’t beat around the bush; they connect buying meat with having blood on your hands. The visceral immediacy of it is creepy, jarring, and as unpleasant as it should be.

Additionally the website that the commercial directs viewers to, chooseveg.com, attacks the egg and dairy industry and dispels myths about “free range” or “humane” animal products. The website asserts that “Animal agriculture, even free-range or organic animal agriculture, is by its very nature cruel.”

This is refreshing in a world where many animal advocacy groups are afraid to advocate for veganism for fear of seeming dogmatic, uncompromising, or divisive.

There aren’t many negatives to the ads. My main complaint is the use of the word “vegetarian.” While it could be argued that veganism is a strict type of vegetarianism and so the ad could more readily be accused of being too vague rather than inaccurate, I would argue that abstaining from meat is simply a dietary choice without moral weight. If what you are advocating is veganism then say veganism.

Shying away from the use of the word “vegan” while simultaneously advocating for its precepts is not necessarily misleading, but it is confusing and lacks oomph. If we want to make the world a better place for animals then veganism seems to be the only path that makes sense, so let’s quit softening our message and give it to the people straight. If we want to make vegan living mainstream, then we’re gonna have to embrace the word even if we think the public may warm up to it slowly.

Overall though, the ads hit the nail on the head. If you’re buying animal products, eating animal products, supporting animal entertainment or animal testing then you’ve got blood on your hands. If you want to help end animal cruelty, go vegetarian.

I've been VEGAN for 40 years, and I don't have a problem with a public media ad using the term "vegetarian" because the term is more familiar to the general population than Vegan. When the subject is brought up, I always have to explain, over & over in detail, the "difference" between the two terms. When I went cruelty-free 40 years ago, Vegetarian was the only term used. Now there's ovo-vegetarian, lacto-vegetarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, pescetarian, etc. As an ethical Vegan, its very confusing to me. Cruelty-Free=Vegan.

i agree Pego, we have too many mouths to feed. that's why it's so important we stop feeding most of the world's food to animals. the facts i used to support the resources wasted by animal agriculture are easily verifiable and come from such "controversial" organizations as the EPA and Pew Oceans Commission among others. animal agriculture is simply too wasteful in a crowded world such as ours.

for instance, at any one time there are about one billion people who are hungry, malnourished, and starving. the US alone grows enough food to feed every one of them but instead feeds most of this food to farm animals which in turn produce less food than they consume and at higher prices out of reach of poorer nations. the world food crisis is not one of not enough food but of economy and greed. producers prefer producing more profitable animal products for wealthier nations than more affordable and plentiful foods for more people.

as long as people continue to support overpriced and unsustainable animal products we will have people in poverty dying without enough food. for their sake please go vegan, at least several days a week. but diverting blame to people already helping because you want to continue trying to justify your personal diet of dead animals helps no one.

Yes, they are effective and they should be shown also in my country, Finland. Very little help is given to animals beccause activists are too polite, too proper, too .. shy. They should go in meat eaters restaurants and complain if they don't serve vegan food and similar actions, that are annoying and blaming. Those who are quilty are to be blamed! If we want to help animals quicker than in 500 years, we should have strong and effective and constant actions. They should show ads like these mentioned here for 24h every day on every channel.

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